One year ago

It is July 6th, 2009. One year since we lost our baby, Lyle George. A few days ago I bought a flowering shrub and planted it in our yard in his honor and memory. I was warned to have something planned for this day, otherwise the vicious memory of the entire ordeal a year ago would come down upon us like a ton of flaming bricks. So I bought a blank scrap book last week and tonight Robert, Iris and I filled it with the items given to us from the hospital in Lake City where Lyle was born, the cards received from friends and family, faxes sent by the crematorium, and letters we each wrote to Lyle today. It was good to get that done for it is something I have been thinking about for months and months. We were all very sad remembering him and that horrific night.

Earlier in the evening good friends came over and we split up our weekly CSA garden delights, drank beers and planned a long weekend in a cabin for late August. All great things. Our lives are very blessed with kindness and love. All the more reason to not understand why Lyle's life had to be taken so he couldn't be a part of it.

So many things jab me with their fierce and pointed flashes of pain: our failed attempts at pregnancy after Lyle; the bad advise of my midwives when it all started to come down; the boxes of baby clothes taking up space in our basement that I can't seem to part with; memories of that night and the brutal months that followed. It makes me so angry and frustrated that memories of grieving, not just the event that caused the grieving, make me grieve. How can that be? How can I let that be? How will it stop, this grieving, if grieving begets grieving?

But we do move on. This year has been the longest perhaps of my life with its multi-phases of grief, the struggle to maintain stability and sanity, the shift in priorities and ambitions. A year has gone by and I feel like a splintered version of myself, but a splinter that has now grown new shoots that are rather twisty and unsure, yet have some amount of knowledge that the sun is up and that the sun provides nourishment.

Robert expressed his sadness tonight, saying he thought today would be hard, but that it was much harder than he had anticipated. I don't think we knew how to support each other-each lost in our own memories of that night and our loss. I have to remember sometimes that this did not just happen to me, that he hurts too.

We miss and love you Lyle. Son, brother, Grandson, nephew. Be at peace.